White Rose Black Forest(71)

“I heard about it.”

“The British blockaded the North Sea and attempted to starve us out. People wasted away. We had enough food to survive, but were all thin as greyhounds. Your great-grandfather died from dysentery, your great-aunt from tuberculosis, worn down by malnutrition. Every family was touched by the great hunger, by the madness of the kaiser, the French and the British, the ridiculous jingoism that destroyed a generation. And now they’re determined to do it all again.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds.

“I’ll be on my way after lunch, Uncle.”

“You won’t stay longer? It’s been so long.”

“I can’t. I would love to.”

“It was wonderful to see you. I’m so glad you had the chance to visit.”

“As am I.”

The chair screeched on the stone floor as she got up. Franka knew there was little chance she’d ever see the old man again. She stood hugging him in the middle of the kitchen, letting go only when she recalled John in the room upstairs waiting for her.

He was ready to go, standing by the door as she arrived back at the bedroom.

Franka distracted her uncle by asking to see the view from the backyard as John snuck downstairs and out the front door. Hermann led her back into the house a few minutes later. She took him in her arms, knowing that she’d likely never hold a member of her family again. Cherished family memories would soon be hers alone. She would be the only person able to describe her mother’s sense of humor, her father’s singing voice, or the love that Fredi shared with everyone he met. Those remnants of her past would fade into oblivion. Hermann bade her goodbye, holding a hand aloft as she shut the door behind her.

She followed John and ducked behind a neighboring house. The tree line beckoned. No other way. They moved in silence up the hill and into the forest. The trees closed in around them. The dull winter sun faded out behind snow-covered branches, and they moved almost in darkness, even in the middle of the day. The cover on the ground was a foot deep. Franka wished she’d brought her snowshoes, as her thick walking boots lumbered through the clinging snow. John found branches to serve as hiking poles, and they trudged on, the cold gnashing at them, the sweat forming on their backs. John had insisted that they maintain absolute silence as they went, so they didn’t talk.

John worked through every possible scenario he’d trained in, trying to remember every word his instructors had ever spoken. He searched for the answer to this situation—this problem of getting to Switzerland alive. It had to be there. He remembered the instructions on sneaking through the border. It was possible. There was no barbed wire, no wall—just a line of listening posts. The guards were human. They fell asleep. They read letters from home by candlelight when they were meant to be watching. They talked and joked and ate while they were on duty. There would be holes. The map would tell him where they were. Enough men had already stolen through, and with the strains on the German war machine, perhaps they had cut down on the border guards. They needed all the men they could get to fight the Soviets on the eastern front and to protect against the coming of the Allied forces to the west.

Franka watched John’s back as he went. His movements were considered, deliberate. It was hard to say if his legs were affecting him or he was just pacing himself. He put his weight on the walking sticks he’d fashioned as he moved. She tried to picture what lay across the border—that was an irrelevance. The only thing that mattered was getting there. There was no room for hesitation now. Their only chance would be to make it across the border before the Gestapo found Daniel’s decaying corpse under the floorboards of her father’s cabin. Once they found him, the roadways would be flooded with every available man they could muster, and trying to cross into Switzerland would be almost impossible.

Every frozen step was a step closer. It was less than twenty miles.

John checked his compass. The sky was almost invisible. The forest was all they could see. His legs were sore, but it was hard to know whether it was because of the exertions of today or because they weren’t fully recovered yet. Probably both.

John stopped by the stump of a long-dead tree to wait for her. She unfurled her scarf, and he found himself staring at her face as if it were a precious jewel. The mission had to remain his priority, yet the thoughts of bringing her home remained in his mind.

“It’s almost five o’clock,” he whispered, though all signs of human life had dissipated. “It’ll be dark soon. I estimate we’ve covered about six miles since we started out. How are you feeling?”

“I feel strong,” she said.

“I think we should keep going, for another couple of hours at least. Moving at night is dangerous, but we’ve no choice. For all we know they’ve discovered Berkel’s body and are deploying troops to search for us right now.”

“I agree.”

“Watch out. Be careful where you step, and we’ll try to find a five-star cave to spend the night.”

“Sounds fabulous.”

“Don’t say that I don’t bring you to the best places.”

“You certainly know how to show a girl a good time.”

“If we don’t find somewhere, we have Berkel’s tent. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said. They moved off.

Armin Vogel, who had been a policeman for seven years before the National Socialists came to power, had transitioned to the Gestapo with ease. It was a matter of following the law, and the law gave him powers that he couldn’t have dreamed of when he’d first joined the force in the 1920s. Such power was persuasive, and the notions he’d held as a young man were swept away in the Nazi mudslide. He was untouchable now, answerable only to direct superiors, who almost never questioned his methods. As long as the putrid stream of information kept flowing, his place as a vital cog in the rule of law was assured. There was no room for pity or remorse. Not in such a crucial role as his. Pity was for the weak, remorse for the defeated. He was neither.